AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Weekly! Meetings!” I shout, pacing the length of the living room as Nicole sits on the couch.
She has a bowl of popcorn in her lap and watches me, her eyes tracking my path as I walk the same few feet of carpet over and over again.
“I’ve been assigned to weekly meetings with my ex-boyfriend as a part of my job. Why is this a thing?”
“Because you decided to teach a bunch of teenagers,” she says, chuckling and tossing another piece of popcorn into her mouth.
I glare at her, and her expression becomes apologetic.
“Sorry,” she says. “Not the point. Your luck in this situation is rotten. 100%. It is entirely unfair.”
“Entirely unfair.”
“You have every right to be irritated.”
“So irritated.”
“Have you thought about just…not meeting with him?”
Sighing, I stop my pacing and drop down on the couch next to her.
“I did think about that, but we have to email in each week sharing what we talked about and any concerns we have.”
Reaching over, I grab a few pieces of popcorn from Nicole’s bowl and pop one into my mouth.
“So lie.”
“I’ll just lie!” I snort, chucking a piece at her face. “I could probably do that,” I tell her, “but Bishop couldn’t.”
Nicole slumps down, resting her bowl on her stomach and laying her feet across my lap.
“Well that sucks.”
I’ve been thinking about it nonstop since Principal Cohen shared the expectations with us during the in-service earlier today, first wondering if I can get out of it and then imagining what it will be like.
“But what if it doesn’t?” I say, speaking aloud the fear that has been pulsing in my chest from the moment I saw Bishop two weeks ago.
“What if what doesn’t what?”
I look at Nicole. “What if it doesn’t suck? What if I like spending time with him every week? What if I forget about how much it hurt when we broke up because I like what it feels like to spend time together again?”
She’s silent for a while, and I’m not sure if it’s because she doesn’t know what to say or she doesn’t know how to say it. Eventually, when she does speak, what she says isn’t a surprise.
“The what-ifs don’t matter because he’s leaving again. Right?”
I let my head rest on the back of the couch and stare at the ceiling, knowing what she’s saying is true. It’s callous, sure, but true nonetheless.
“Bam’s plan has always been to go chase his dream somewhere else. He’s not staying, so you don’t have to worry about all the what-ifs because eventually, he will leave. He will go back to his little farm team in suburban Oregon and keep focusing on his goals, and you’ll still be here, focused on yours.”
We’re both silent as I ruminate on that thought, on this idea that I’ll be spending regular time with Bishop Mitchell. Sure, it’ll just be a brief meeting, twenty to thirty minutes at most, but it will still be there on my calendar every single week.
“And who knows, maybe it’ll do you two some good,” she continues. “You can hash out all that shit from four years ago, you know? Getting some closure does everyone at least a little good.”
Also true, but not something I am interested in whatsoever. Bishop broke up with me, yes, but as devastated as I was, as much as it tore me apart, I’ve never been one to fault someone for doing what is right for them. For whatever reason—a reason I’ve never understood—Bishop thought it was better for us to end our relationship. There doesn’t need to be some dramatic explanation. There doesn’t need to be some…resolution to a pain from years ago.
Besides, talking about it means I’d have to share with him what it was like on my end, and that’s the last thing I want to do.
Maybe it is better that we’ve been partnered together. We’ll be forced to talk to each other in short spurts about meaningless bullshit.
